Vermeulen on the steady road to recovery

Queenslander Chris Vermeulen is on target to resume riding early next year following major surgery on his right knee in July.

The 28-year-old’s recovery from the operation is meeting all targets, and he’s confident he’ll be able to start testing in January on the all-new Kawasaki world superbike contender.

“It’s now been 13 weeks since the operation and the doctors and physio are very happy with my recovery so far,” said the Andorran-based Vermeulen.  “I have to wear a brace to protect the ligament that was replaced, and it’s set so that I can bend from straight to 100 degrees and feels very good in this range.

“In fact I was able to bend to 126 degrees last week without any pain, but I need over 150 degrees with strength on the bike.”

Vermeulen’s rehabilitation consists of physiotherapy four days per week, and when he’s not under the counsel of professionals he completes 20 minutes of exercise on the leg every hour.

“I am not able to put more than about 40 percent of my body weight through my knee so I am still on crutches, but in three weeks or so I am hoping that I will be able to start walking.

“If it’s looking very good by mid November the doctors say I will be able to start being more aggressive with my training and rehabilitation.

“So the plan is to come back to Australia in mid-November if all is still going well. And by the time the planned test at Sepang comes around in early January, I will have been off a bike for six months.

“But the doctors say I won't do any more damage to my knee when I'm on the bike."

During the 150-minute keyhole operation in Barcelona, surgeons replaced Vermeulen’s posterior cruciate ligament with a donor ligament, and also replaced his lateral meniscus with a type of plastic – a fix which is becoming popular in football circles to drastically cut down healing time.

Vermeulen first damaged his knee in the opening round of the 2010 world superbike title at Phillip Island, and when he returned to action he could hardly go about his normal business let alone wrestle around a 200-plus horsepower superbike with absolute assurance.

With the short-term prognosis poor, the decision was finally made to sit out the remainder of this year to ensure a return to full fitness in time for the 2011 Kawasaki race program – one which is bursting with optimism after the release of the all-new power-hungry ZX-10R.

Unless there is a major hiccup in his recovery, Vermeulen will now be able to complete a solid pre-season ahead of the opening round of the 2011 world superbike title at Phillip Island from February 25-27.

Vermeulen will be joined on the 2011 world superbike grid by countryman Troy Corser (BMW), while Newcastle’s Broc Parkes (Kawasaki) will be a leading contender in world supersport.